Road getting rockier for Sox rookie Drake Britton

Sunday

Aug 11, 2013 at 7:37 PM

Sunday started the hard part for Drake Britton.For the better part of a month, Britton has excelled in his new role as a major-league reliever. He didn’t allow a run in his first nine innings. Entering...

By TIM BRITTON

Sunday started the hard part for Drake Britton.

For the better part of a month, Britton has excelled in his new role as a major-league reliever. He didn’t allow a run in his first nine innings. Entering Sunday, he had allowed three in his last two appearances.

How Britton would respond to his first big-league hiccup was worth watching; throughout his minor-league career, bouncing back quickly from struggle wasn’t always his forte.

So when the left-hander allowed the first four Royals he faced in Sunday’s eighth inning to reach, it looked as if things might get completely out of hand. Not so. Helped out by an unorthodox pickoff, Britton escaped the inning unscathed to give the Red Sox a chance in the ninth.

It was yet another step in a summer of them for Britton, a summer in which he has shown himself up to challenges that weren’t always his strong suit. The left-hander has proven malleable to a whole bunch of situations — relieving for the first time in his life, coming on with runners on base, even pinch-running when needed.

Unlike, say, Brandon Workman, Britton had no prior experience as a relief pitcher before his major-league debut, which came with two on and nobody out in a tight game with the Yankees — with Ichiro Suzuki in the batter’s box and Robinson Cano on deck.

Britton has always had terrific stuff — a mid-90s fastball with a hard, tight slider and a changeup.

“Everyone’s looking for a left-hander that can throw the way he can throw the ball,” said Kevin Walker, Britton’s pitching coach at High-A Salem. “Hard-throwing lefties out of the pen are tough to find.”

The issue with Britton over the course of his development has been poise. Walker knows that better than most. He was with Britton during the toughest season of his professional career in 2011, when the left-hander went 1-13 with a 6.91 ERA.

At that point in his career, Britton had a tendency to let innings careen off the rails, a small rally snowballing into a five-run frame.

“I used to get caught up in the situation, and it would just turn into a disaster,” Britton said. “My focus has gotten a lot better. Relieving, I’m getting one or maybe two innings. I don’t care who gets up at the plate, I don’t care who we’re facing. In my mind, I get so locked in. ‘I’m getting these guys out.’ ”

“That’s something that was clearly developing this year,” said Bob Kipper, Britton’s pitching coach at Double-A Portland this season. “He struggled with that early, and he found a way to just stay in the moment when he was out in the mound and not to get too distracted with the last pitch. That’s a mental skill.”

That’s what’s made his success in tight spots in the big leagues so refreshing. The quality that manager John Farrell and Britton’s big-league teammates have complimented the most to this point has been his poise.

“He doesn’t back away from the challenge,” Farrell said last week.

“He was obviously thrown out into a kind of trial by fire,” fellow lefty Craig Breslow said. “He’s got great stuff, but the thing that distinguishes success up here is one’s ability to harness and control that independent of the situation. He’s been able to do a good job of it.”

In Breslow and Matt Thornton, Britton has found himself with a pair of veterans upon whom he can lean for advice — whether it’s how to approach a certain left-handed hitter or just preventing him from walking down to the bullpen an hour before the rest of the relievers, as Britton did his first day in the majors.

“Those guys probably hate me for all the questions I ask them,” Britton said. “If I see something that happens or see a play and I don’t get it, I can just turn to the older guys and ask, ‘What should he have done? What should we do in that situation?’ ”

“We’re only as able to help as somebody is willing to listen and learn,” said Breslow. “He needs to be given a lot of credit for not only what he’s been able to do on the field but also for his willingness to take advice, to ask a lot of questions, to pick our brains. I like to think we can provide a resource for him. I think we both appreciate that he’s willing to use it.”

Britton’s emergence means that, despite injuries to Andrew Miller and Franklin Morales, the Red Sox have multiple left-handers they can call on out of the pen. Even better, Britton has proven effective against all hitters: Lefties are 5-for-19 off him, righties 3-for-19.

“Hopefully I’ve gained the trust where they can put me in the tight spots and have faith in me, because that gives me more faith in myself,” Britton said. “I’ve been on Cloud Nine since I’ve been here, just having so much fun and getting stuff done. We’ve been playing awesome, and it’s been unreal.”

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